


lead me out (on the moonlight floor)

by illustraice



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Nino Lahiffe Is So Done, Nino Lahiffe Ships It, Slow Burn, absolutely zero references to ladybug and chat in this on if im gonna be honest, adrien is party angsty, alya adrien and chloe are the golden trio, alya and chloe just won't stop making out man, aspiring designer/artist mari, lesbian couple alya and chloe just want their son (adrien) to be happy, marinette is intensely sleep deprived, nino and mari are the best of bros, nino has nino plans, rich uni bro adrien, sixpence none the richer's 'kiss me' has all sorts of weird powers, this is kinda like a weird artist twist to the cinderella story, well kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-01-05 17:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21212183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illustraice/pseuds/illustraice
Summary: Marinette fights her own computer, trespasses private property, loses 48 hours of sleep, trudges through lovesick couples on campus, flips pancakes way too late, loses a bet and finally overcomes Golden Trios.Nino hatches plans, bakes bread and likes TMZ way too much. Chloe and Alya find true love, get immortalized through a jacket and eat $250 shrimp.Additionally; Adrien nurses a heartbreak, has epiphanies over stir fry, fails Usain Bolt, trends on Twitter (again), pays too much attention, fakes an Oscar nomination, loses a 6B pencil in London and finally makes it out the year alive.Wherein their lines blur at one night’s party; once streaks of paint are unwittingly smeared across a blank canvas.





	1. Maroon

**Author's Note:**

> i hadn't written in a long time for the funsies. i've been listening to sixpence none's the richer's 'kiss me' way too much and that fuels all kinds of prophetic visions of varsity jackets and 90s inspired au's. yes i am aware it is ‘moonlit’ floor instead of ‘moonlight’. alas this is vry intentional; you’ll see in time :)
> 
> i guess that's that on that. have fun with this tornado of paint and sleep deprivation <3

Chloe Bourgeois’ Capri Sun has a sheen to it.

It probably reflects light on some poor freshman kid trying to navigate the hallways filtered with the fall breeze and the faint scent of student panic. She stays seated between the legs of the unbothered figure behind her and thinks that getting to class in time is, like, grossly overrated and Alya Cesaire’s arms have to be comfortably occupied, thank you very much. If she had any time, Marinette would think it was moderately cute and a true testament to battling against The Wall of Heterosexuality, but because she doesn’t have any time between pushing her way through The Wave of Student Flesh and desperately clinging to her multiple binders, she starts to think it’s a bit of an inconvenience.

The Cesaire-Bourgeois Package Deal block a generous portion of the stair path; if the freshmen had any opposition to Françoise Dupont University’s ‘It’ Couple’s (of 5 months and 16 days, Chloe had announced in a lecture once) location of choice, they didn’t comment. Marinette scans the frantic narrow hallway and appraises her options; she’d very much like to get to Economics on time but there’s probably bad, weirdly homophobic, undertones to telling the Package Deal to please, get off the stairs and get to class.

The two are glued to their spot, class time a weak thing to nudge their unwavering dedication to listen to whatever pop-indie playlist Cesaire has curated on her phone as they share the singular string of earpods. Marinette shuts her eyes for a few seconds, wishing Nino were here to pick up her courage off the ground to hand back to her so she can say something to the two about not blocking the stair path and making out in the next 5--or maybe 2?--minutes.

A trio of younger students scamper to the stairs, too careful to not bother the couple like if they were to make contact with even an inch of Cesaire’s varsity jacket, they would suffer the force of an electrical shock or something equally dangerous to the medical bill. Marinette wills herself to roll her eyes, hopes that whatever exasperation she has rolled with it. She’s near the duo enough to share a few words (maybe testimonies from other students about how much they want to get to class on time?), and slowly inhales preparing to speak when a smooth voice calls out behind her.

“Can you two get any more cliche?”

Somehow, through the blaring indie mess of a song--Hozier? A band Marinette doesn’t know?--Alya acknowledges the comment and offers a smile in the direction of the voice.

“Relaxation is key, Agreste.” she hums lazily. Between the confines of Alya’s arms, her girlfriend grunts intelligently.

By the time Marinette realises her conversational sacrifice is better off unrealised, making her way farther up the stairs hurriedly, Chloe has put her earbud to the side and points a meticulously manicured finger accusingly.

“Find true love before you judge true love.” she preaches.

“What is that? Aristotle?” Adrien quips. “I think true love can find a way to stop blocking the stairs and scaring the freshmen.”

Chloe scrunches her nose. “Find true love on your own first to prove it.”

Adrien sighs and for the short time being, curses his previous determination 5 months ago to force his best friends on a date. Instead of resulting in moderately disastrous material he’d hoped would happen to use as some kind of funny leverage they could all laugh at one day, they’d turn out to be ridiculously compatible despite their exteriors and made out after a mere 45 minutes of the date. They’d laugh in the face of his ulterior motives, howling at him when he’d found them in each other's arms sickeningly in love later.

He’d yelled profanities that it wasn’t fair that it actually worked (“It was supposed to be a joke! God, come on!”) as they snickered, all three clustered on his bedroom floor drinking his dad’s whiskey from the inviting and playfully restricted liquor cabinet (they’d been careful to pick an unenticing bottle stored all the way back). But truthfully he was happy for them, earnestly and annoyingly so.

Even so, their habits needed to die; like getting caught in embarrassing places making out or purposefully making out in front of teachers with Homophobic Tendencies (Adrien was more than supportive of that one but he’d also run several arguments on why it may risk them not graduating. Alya had just shrugged and said yolo) and now, blocking crucial stairways in their ferocious display of PDA. He quickly glances up above the stairs and thinks about telepathically apologizing to everyone who has had to wade their way through the duo. A figure with pitch black hair almost stumbles up in a hurry. Adrien sighs like it's physically killing him to see other people suffer via his best friends.

“Can you two just get up and go to class.” he finalises. He looks down at Chloe’s cheer uniform like he's hallucinating. The near neon yellow in it is so blatantly the colour of Chloe’s life.

Students still scatter around the area but they’re beginning to disappear to their classes. He makes way for a row of students running to the stairs and they thank him, eyes wild communicating some kind of cryptic message he thinks he can decipher as ‘save us’. He takes several steps up and flicks at Alya’s bun, strays of her hair bouncing. She doesn’t protest and instead takes some form of an effort to take his advice but it’s quickly halted by a suave kiss to her lips.

"5 more minutes." Alya’s lips barely mutter against her girlfriend’s. The proposed time frame seems to be unnegotiated.

Adrien jerks his head up to the ceiling and groans.

* * *

When three chattering students noisily stumble their way through her Economics class, Marinette takes no note of it. She’s a little too caught up in what pretentious shade of red the bodice of the dress she desperately trying--failing?--to design in her Studio Arts class is supposed to be so that it passes off as something Dior would create. A deep, lusting flame colour or perhaps, maroon? Maybe? Frighteningly so? She flicks her head up momentarily to glance at a wave of varsity jackets and a singular cheer uniform. The chatter of the room increases exponentially. Alya Cesaire makes a joke or two to the professor that somehow saves her and her friends’ asses. The cue of rolled eyes from their professor is on time but just as swiftly, they turn kind and indifferently forgiving like they always are to Cesaire’s charm.

A row of girls in front of Marinette swoon a little and it takes a moment for her to realise it’s directed at Adrien Agreste’s smooth greeting, the smile on his face so easy it reminds Marinette of toothpaste commercials. Chloe takes a claim beside Alya’s seat, a Capri Sun in hand and a look of undiluted boredom in another. She crosses her legs, pouts a little at her girlfriend, a form of formally beckoning her over to sit down already.

Seats are taken. Because Marinette has a brain and two whole eyes, it has always registered to her that the three are easy--a pleasure perhaps--to look at. Agreste’s a model even; his status of that is as clear as day as it is as cemented on the school’s Wikipedia and his flashy Instagram bio. But the force of all three was indeed a ridiculously attractive sight and Marinette would take her time to appreciate it all (really, she would!) if the stress of completing her portfolio hadn’t kept her occupied every ticking minute of her time in school.

She sighs and eases her eyes on Adrien Agreste who practically swaggers his way to his seat, playfully bickering with Chloe the whole time without either caring for volume much to the class’ entertainment. His soft, somewhat curled, bundle of hair practically bounces like it just has its own individualistic way with gravity. A hand tucked in his varsity jacket pocket and another loosely on the strap of his bag, he laughs at one thing or another said by Alya and Marinette thinks it’s a nice sound. A casually beautiful entity, she concludes.

Marinette’s eyes wander aimlessly at the board but she feels a pair of eyes on her anyway. Adrien’s eyebrows furrow for a moment, a hint of recognition on his eyes as he takes the steps above like he’s willing a vision to be painted in his head. Before she can look to him, his head turns away and he quips at whatever incoming remark from Chloe he had his way. Huh.

By the time the chatter dies down low enough, Marinette has already decided the brief moment had been a mere daydream, a wander of aimless eyes at her in coincidence just like her own. She picks up her pen and writes her notes, stifling a yawn. Maroon, she thinks, is an easier colour.

* * *

Chloe’s bedroom floor looks a little like what Adrien envisions as an entire Sephora store. He’s not all that sure what that actually looks like but between Chloe yelling out to find fifteen different shades of lipstick and Alya lazily stacking more than forty eyeshadows on each other in some cosmetic version of Jenga, he thinks he’s right. His wooden chopsticks point to the takeaway stir fry in his hand and he’s debating whether to try out that powder thing, see if it does something or other. The view beyond Chloe’s perfectly oversized balcony is easy to look at, sunset views and all, and he thinks he’d like it a lot if he could stay there instead of the proposed agenda of the upcoming night.

Alya is sprawled out in her girlfriend’s bed, amusing herself with a meme or two on her phone. That doesn’t really satisfy Chloe who whines a little when she steps out of her closet, a yellow high neck dress tight on her waist. Adrien scrunches his nose and thinks the other dress--whatever he remembers of it--was probably better.

“Why don’t I look hot?” Chloe mourns. She slumps on a chair nearby, glum and decidedly not hot.

“I liked the other dress better.” Adrien offers, staring at the ceiling. He doesn’t think he likes the stir fry either. God, they should’ve just gotten pizza but Adrien’s stomach had made some last minute ditch to stir fry just as they entered the pizza shop and he should’ve listened to Alya saying his stomach is probably making a mistake but it just seemed so good of an idea at the time.

Alya glances up from her phone and makes some kind of protesting sound. “You always look hot babe!”

“Yes, true.” Chloe agrees momentarily, ‘But I don’t look hot in any dresses tonight.”

“Just don’t wear a dress.” Adrien offers again. They should really be taking his advice, he thinks. He knows he’s not paying that much attention but they should!

“Adrien, get up,” Chloe says.

“No.”

Alya looks at him from the bed, targets his face to throw a pillow. It lands on the desired location perfectly and he thinks it’s probably a warning. “What are you not hungry for?” he hears Alya ask.

He shoves the pillow away, eyes still greeting the ceiling. “The stir fry is not good.”

“You know, where was this energy an hour ego before you dragged us to an extra twenty minute walk to get it?”

“I’d really like my stomach’s intuition not be insulted during these trying times.”

Chloe scoffs, “Yeah, yeah. But really, what’s wrong?”

Her voice had shifted to the softer tone Adrien knows she categorises as the tone only given when Chloe’s actually worried. Adrien almost thinks about lying, then thinks better of it. Chloe and Alya could probably perfectly retrace every single step he's taken in his life. It’s useless and his stir fry has probably gone cold. He sits up this time, the warmth of the carpet off his back. He contemplates first and realises he does not want to ruin the night, not even for himself.

“Don’t worry,” he says finally, quietly. Quiet enough for it to be a clear lie.

Alya and Chloe exchange looks. A brief silence passes, the type Adrien knows is a mutual agreement between all three to wait. It doesn’t have to be said now, the silence says. A beat later, Chloe continues mourning her temporary lack of hotness, whining to herself again as she re-enters the closet. Alya maintains her lazy protests against the statement, grabbing the stir fry away from Adrien for herself (“God, it doesn’t even taste that bad.”). So Adrien grins, wills himself to look forward to his own party, thinking it’s better that way.

* * *

Marinette stares almost menacingly at the computer screen. Photoshop and her design glare back at her like it’s a contest that it’s winning. It’s only a sketch but Marinette starting to think that if she stares at it long enough, the dress itself will appear magically before her, having chosen for itself confidently what colour it’d like its own bodice to be.

Instead, it only leads to her wondering if her eyes are actually threatening to bulge out.

“Why are you having a staring contest with your own computer?”

Marinette doesn’t turn around. Nino’s voice is not enough to keep her from trying this whole make-the-dress-magically-appear concept she’s got going on. He will not distract her from this goal. He places a plate with pepperoni pizza on her desk, a likely and tempting distraction. She takes it anyway.

“Is maroon, like, a good colour?” she asks, taking a bite. Nino lands himself on her bed, his headphones dangling on his neck the way it’s practically glued to him. He chews a bit of his pizza in some kind of contemplation before he answers.

“Depends who’s asking.”

“The bodice of my design is asking.”

“Then no,” he answers.

Marinette does not like this answer. But she’s pretty sure she doesn’t like any of the answers. She’s also sure Nino’s just talking out of his ass, but she appreciates the input.

“Man, have you even went out of your room since school?” he asks. It’s a genuine question, Marinette knows there’s no trace of judgement on his lips. But she’s also feeling a little jaded from the hours she’s spent on the design like it’s her lifeline enough that sulking feels like an obligation. So she musters a look of feigned offence.

“I take that as a no,” he says.

Instead of answering, Marinette dumps her face flat softly against the desk. All too quickly, Marinette realises this action in of itself is an answer.

“Okay.” Nino pulls himself up swiftly, hands clasped together the way it always is when he has a plan, “You look like you’re in the middle of a mid-life crisis at 21 and it’s just way too early for that. Get up, get dressed, put your hair up or whatever. We’re going to a party.”

Marinette grumbles. The idea, like every Nino idea, is perfectly acceptable, logical and has more than enough, the right intentions. It’s the execution, Marinette knows, that falters. Like how in kindergarten, he’d tell his best friend as their mothers shopped in IKEA that it was cool--yes, very cool!--to play hide and seek beyond the safety of the children’s play area, hiding away from the watch of the employees. It was practically genius to 6-year-old Marinette. Running away from boring IKEA-themed adults? Acceptable! Hide-and-Seek, the most thrilling game of century in a big area with lots of spaces to hide? Logical! Marinette and Nino had been bored out of their minds, un-enticed by the disgrace of a ball pit? The right intentions! It had been 15 IKEA employees yelling out the two children’s names for an hour later as they giggled away that had caused the fiasco to turn out to seem like Not Such a Genius Idea. The aftermath of their mothers’ disapproving faces had been another reminder.

‘Nino.” Marinette begins, “There’s a pros and cons list already made for that idea and I hate to tell you this, but there’s not a lot of pros.”

Nino considers this for a moment like he hasn’t already made up his mind. “There’s not a lot of cons either.”

The list is empty, Marinette says in their comfortable silence. Just like my head right now.

“Stop this.” Nino urges, “You need to get out. My best friend needs to come to this stupid rich kid party with me, eat a bunch of rich kid snacks and drink rich kids’ booze and live in the moment instead of looking like she’s about to go MMA on her computer”

Marinette doesn’t hate the idea of a party. She isn’t even opposed to them at all. Even art kids like her need their fair share of big gulps of gross alcohol and badly executed dances. But she also knows the only party of actual prominence tonight is Adrien Agreste’s, the golden boy of the Golden Trio. She thinks she might not like to throw up in his mansion or take up any form of social interaction when the mind-blowing topic of Maroon vs. Not Maroon is the only thing on her mind.

In the time she took to contemplate this, Nino had dug out a pair of her black jeans and a halter top. He throws the clothing at her and she knows he has hit his target when she feels the material on the back of her head.

Marinette sighs the heaviest of sighs and Nino rolls his eyes. “Mari, you’re not dying.”

“Sure am.”

Like some kind of protest, he blasts some random 90s hit over the speakers from his phone. Marinette looks up, eyes already hazy and takes another bite of the pizza. Sixpence None the Richer blares like it’s trying to actually etch itself to Marinette’s ears. Nino joins in the verse but he’s kind of shrieking the way Marinette knows he does when he’s purposely trying to piss off Choir teachers. Marinette stifles a laugh, then immediately groans.

God, rich booze really better be good.

* * *

His party is Very Good, Adrien intelligently evaluates this to himself. He’s in the middle of the dancefloor that’s really just his oversized living room, red solo cup to his lips. He’s not exactly sure what he’s drinking but he is sure it’s primarily responsible for the bubble of misplaced happiness to his body. He’s just a little hazy and deliriously warm and what the fuck is he drinking again? He dances between great friends, good friends, friends and not-friends-but-will-be-friends. Many eyes light up to his face in recognition, he happily recalls. The joys of being the host, he sighs in what he hopes is content.

The mansion is packed the way Adrien likes it when it’s a party--his party. It’s to blare out the loneliness inside these walls, the thought trespasses his mind. He frowns at it and systematically tucks it away in the space of gulping down all of his whatever-it-is drink and chatting to whoever is on his right. The wide-eyed girl smiles at him, polite and yet eager. He recognises her as part of Chloe’s cheer squad and she looks quite pretty tucking her hair behind her ears. Yes, very pretty! Is that pink eyeshadow on her? Adrien thinks it might be purple. They talk for a spare few minutes, slowing their movements a little. Adrien’s not entirely following whatever it is they’re supposed to be talking about it, but he knows he’s flashing his Good Smile and she’s flashing her Good Smile. And they look very nice, even! Yes! Wait, he halts, wait what?

“Agreste, you dumbass.” Adrien registers the voice as one Alya Cesaire but he’s not as quick to register the pull from the back of his jacket.

He’s dragged without grace across the other side of the room where the bar is set up, the crowd had parted like the knowing red sea with people laughing at his demise. Adrien’s arms flail in some kind of attempt to pull away from Alya’s force but he quickly becomes aware it makes him look like he’s drowning horizontally on dry land.

“Hang on there Adrien!” he hears Rose squeak but he can tell she’s grinning.

When Alya arrives at her destination, he finds Chloe perched on the barstool, chuckling at him. “What are you doing flirting with one of my girls?”

He feels a little caught in some kind of invisible lie. “Am not!”

Unfortunately, his voice squeaks the way it always does when he’s in a (drunk!) childish fit of defense. His knees wobble and Adrien wonders when jelly became a substitute for his knees? Did he authorise that? Alya and Chloe’s laughs almost thunder throughout the room, probably threatening to break walls.

“You sound like a 3-year-old caught in a lie.” Chloe snorts. Almost as if embracing this proposed age, Adrien pouts and sticks out his tongue. It’s stained red from his whatever-it-is drink. Has he been drinking wine? God, what is he? Above thirty?

“Yeah, yeah. Not all of us wanna make out with our true love every 5 minutes.” he places his cup to the bar, motioning for the bartender to refill a drink. The man raises an eyebrow, asking what he’d like before Adrien says whatever is alright. In fact, he has been drinking whatever the whole night so he might as well continue. “Not all of us have found it either.”

“Don’t be so poetic in your own party.” Alya feigns disgust, “Call Aristotle or whatever. Make him do the labour. Your stuff is terrible.

“My stuff,” Adrien tries not to slur, “is very, very, very good.”

“He sounds very convincing.” Juleka nods as she approaches. She takes a sip of her drink and in an act Adrien can only recall as an angelic move, she places a hand on his shoulder to stop him from the very bad consequences of his Knee Wobbling Fiasco. “Hold on there, buddy. The night has barely started.”

“You’d think Adrien would make it as a good act for the Debate Club?” Rose giggles beside her.

Chloe smirks, ‘You should register him now whilst he thinks his material is very, very, very good.”

The warm round of laughter from the circle erupts from this and Adrien delivers several glares to Chloe that they both know are just empty threats. He likes that everyone is having a good time, likes the obnoxious blare of music over the speakers and the familiar touch of everyone around the room he’s known.

“Adrien!” a voice bellows from the crowd. Adrien’s reflexes are painfully slow thanks to his whatever booze but he turns his head to spot the familiar figure, headphones on his neck. Nino always makes it easy to recognise Nino that way.

“My man!” Adrien drunkenly skips towards Nino, lunges his body weight at him. Nino somehow manages to handle the force of his bear hug and laughs, his body vibrating with it.

“How have you been?”

Adrien does not answer this question. Instead, he cries, “Nino, what the hell! Where have you been, man! It’s been, like, days! Without you, man! Without you!”

The group behind them laugh at Adrien’s speech, but Adrien is having trouble comprehending why. It’s been 2 days without his good friend! 2 whole days! He hopes the misery seeps out of him so they can understand his pain. 2 whole days!

“Okay, I don’t know what you’re drinking but it’s either that good, or you’ve overestimated how much you can handle. Again.” Nino grins, tries to position Adrien to stand. Adrien falls back to his arms like his body is lifeless. Was it? It sorta felt like it was.

“I am very good.” Adrien announces. He’s not sure who at.

“Don’t listen to his dumb ass.” Chloe laughs, “Have a seat with us, Lahiffe.”

She motions at an open seat near the bar. Nino smiles but his eyes flicker back to the crowd. He glances to Adrien, pulls a look like he’s going to say something mildly serious.

Nino slows his speech as if to consider Adrien’s quickly deteriorating brain cells. Adrien’s honestly grateful for it. ‘Hey, I’ve actually got a friend I’ve dragged along I’d like you guys to meet. Hope you don’t mind the plus-one, Adrien.”

No, Adrien doesn’t mind at all! Absolutely not! He wishes he could say something intelligent like ‘Of course I don’t mind! I’m happy for my huge ass hollow mansion to be filled up to suppress a bad ache of my loneliness!’. Or maybe he shouldn’t. So Adrien just shakes his head violently.

Nino smiles as if it completes his resolve. He leans Adrien’s body back to Juleka’s sturdy arms.

“Great. I’ll be back!” he wades his way into the crowd, the heap of bodies like some kind of transcendent disco-themed sea. Adrien takes a sip of his new--and hopefully improved?--whatever-it-is drink, hates it, then takes another sip.

* * *

Marinette remembers the order. Stay here for a sec, Nino had said, I need to talk to someone. What she’s not as diligent about is following through with it. Like a bad juxtaposition, she thinks, sipping through this party’s Rich Beer in her hand. It’s warm and fuzzy despite the unorthodox taste it leaves, maybe that’s the intended effect of Rich Kid Expensive Beer? But anyway, this bad juxtaposition weighs in on her. She’s hit with a weird pang of guilt over Not Following through with Nino’s orders. It’s not Acceptable (she’s broken an order), nor Logical (why is she wandering around in the gigantic space of this mansion where she can easily get lost amongst its weird sea of too many bathrooms?), nor does it have good intentions (she’s only helplessly so interested in the paintings surrounding the quieter hallways in this half drunken state).

Well, it’s not bad intentions, she debates, but it’s not Great Intentions. Marinette settles to herself that it’s Marinette Intentions, like that’ll help her explain this very reason of wandering around so clearly tomorrow. Nino will probably say something like what the fuck and then he’ll Not Get Mad at her because he knows pretty paintings are pretty paintings and anyway, why the fuck does Adrien Agreste have so many paintings? He doesn’t even paint! Never even been to a Studio Arts class! Never even suffered over Colour Theory or Composition or bad oil paint stains that go on perfectly good shirts that never come off even after, like, years of the laundry! Never even contemplated the deep distinction between maroon and not maroon! Marinette huffs and she thinks it’s one of her angry huffs.

Marinette thinks she’s okay with maybe swimming back into the sea of bodies, finding a pretty thing to flirt with and make out with for no particular reason for the night before she’ll slink back home. She’ll call an Uber and drunkenly recall the events to an indifferent and kind therapist of an Uber driver. She thinks it’s okay, yes it’s okay. She looks sufficient tonight, her lips are very glossy, very kissable, very capable of speaking to her future Uber driver. Her eyelids are heaped with a mauve shade, and Nino’s choice combination of clothing turned out well because he’s spent 19 years enough with her to recall whatever she says is ugly and not ugly.

But Marinette stares a little listlessly at the near blank hallways of the mansion. It nearly amazes her that despite it feeling like the world’s population was at Agreste’s front door, his mansion still seemed to have room. She waits for the wave of resolution to settle to her body, ending at the tips of her toes as to signal her feet to start moving in the desired direction. But it never does. Marinette sips the weird beer and takes this as a sign to stay in the dim of the hallways. Her eyes linger back on the painting in front of her, encased in a golden frame like it was a cliche. The acrylic sea stares back at her like the challenge her computer screen had once presented only a few hours ago.

Okay, Adrien Agreste’s house paintings, two can play that game.

* * *

Adrien’s footsteps carry the weight of the world. He’s pretty sure that’s not how gravity is supposed to feel like but in this state, he doesn’t really think physics is a concept he can grasp altogether. He had thought mindless dancing would ease his mind, make his body feel light as he tiptoes through the crowd. He sways along with the heat of bodies and he thinks maybe next time he’d like to hire a live weatherman in one of these parties to announce the approximate amount of degrees which he thinks right about now is nearing a million?

He’s dizzy, blissed-out like it hasn’t only been two hours into the party. His mouth feels like it’s on fire and drier than a desert at the same time. He’d chat to anyone who’d even so much as give him half a second of eye contact. He compliments something of anyone’s outfit and they’d say something like great party or Adrien get some damn water and then he’d flash his big megawatt smile reserved for nights like this or in daylight walking in the halls of the university like he’s shooting a never-ending commercial. If Chloe and Alya were concerned, they’d decided to voice their concerns for a later date and let him have his drunken fun.

For some ungodly reason, his mind rewinds to today’s events. Find true love to judge true love. Chloe’s voice strikes thunders in the thick of his cluttered haze. He grimaces, a little fondly. It’s one of those lines Chloe says without any real depth to it but he’s pretty sure the true love part has some weight on her part. Adrien sweats a little (or a lot?), thinks about Kagami for what feels like only a quarter of a second and then suddenly, several million years. He hadn’t let the ground beneath them turn solid, she hadn’t done the same either. So they’d just float in midair, aware they had nothing to land back on just like how he wants to feel weightless in this bulk of a crowd.

He’d kiss her once, in something like one of these parties. She’d return the favour back and it’d seem like such a comfortable tangle of lips at the time. His hand on her hip seemed fair, chivalrous, one of those moments of obvious destiny like how princes in Disney movies had no hesitation once they’d found their princesses. Once their lips parted, it was only then that he could hear the good-natured rumble of cheers surrounding them. Chloe had rolled her eyes, muttered something like I can’t believe you took that long, Adrien and Adrien had agreed on the statement. He’d grin so wide, the muscles on his mouth were a little tired of him. But Kagami’s eyes had been wide and curious and her teeth showed in her loosened smile so Adrien concluded that it had been so very worth it.

But then Kagami had sat down on his couch weeks later, shifting like she was not so sure of the space. As if the air inside was slightly suffocating despite the huge expanse of his second living room. Before her lips had open to speak, her eyes had already performed flutters of apology. Adrien thinks its almost pity but he’d shoved that feeling deep into the back of his mind before it could pose itself as a hazard to his psyche. She says what Adrien recalls as a blur of words. Sentences Adrien had heard loud and clear because Kagami’s voice was fit for presidential speeches or whatever, but were awfully disjointed like an awkward farrago. She hadn’t been sure, hadn’t thought it out, didn’t think it could work out in the midst of their schedules and oh Adrien, it’s not your fault but mine.

Adrien hadn’t processed anything, instead, he’d just theorised that the walls inside had somehow shrunk to the size of his body, squeezing the air out of his lungs. But he’d say things like it’s okay (it wasn’t), he’d thought the same (he hadn’t) and that he hopes they’d remain good friends. They did, in fact, remain good friends. Threateningly so. Then before he could blink twice, she’d jetted off to some lucrative fencing championship for the next 6 months like her life had been strictly scheduled to break his heart for one minute and be whisked away the next. The news of the breakup had circled ruthlessly throughout the entire student body within a matter of hours and Chloe had taken it upon herself to act as his publicist, telling everyone to leave him alone and yes, he’s going through a breakup-themed Spotify playlist, yes, he’d really like his privacy respected at the moment and no Nathaniel, he can’t share his Spotify playlist publicly go make your own

Alya, Chloe and him had raided the liquor cabinet that night like they would die the next day. Alya had ordered an obscene amount of pizza and Chinese takeaway. He wasn’t sure what the end goal was but between giant gulps of noodles, ice cream and diet coke (kind of disgusting), he concluded his friends had hoped he could also gulp away the sadness along with it. Well, he succeeded nonetheless. The next day he’d skipped along a path after classes, looked up to fervour of the orange-tinted sky and hadn’t thought back to Kagami’s eyes like he had been doing for weeks.

Kagami had been stored in the attic of Adrien’s mind, dusted and intentionally forgotten for some nice 4 months. But now she’s being unceremoniously summoned from the attic, in the midst of his dance floor and onto the pits of his mind’s living room. He holds a breath, a little more than worried that if he thinks about her any longer, she might also physically manifest in his actual living room which he honestly doesn’t think is a very good idea at the moment because he might involuntarily throw up on her.

Adrien thinks he can hear Alya’s voice faintly calling his name which is a miracle amongst the thunder of Ariana Grande over the speakers and fifty billion voices all at once. Without much thought to it, his lips linger back to his drink. The liquid burns down his throat like its matching the heat of the room. Ah yes, a billion degrees and perhaps more. He’d like to not think about Kagami at the moment, or any moments really. But once she’s out Adrien’s psychological attic, he finds it hard to stuff her back somewhere else. So he ignores Alya’s siren calls, twists his body the opposite direction and allows his feet to lead him to the better comforts of his bedroom. He stumbles on his way and knows he looks a bit like an idiot but he thinks his destination will make it worth it. Yes, well, it has to.

* * *

This room was too big. Much, much too big. Marinette doesn’t like being all too judgemental of anything. She likes to think that’s a result of her and Nino’s friendship and how Nino's face doesn’t really alter to the news of Marinette not sleeping for 48 hours doing designs. Instead, he’ll do something like quietly pull a blanket to her soulless body sprawled on her couch and confiscate the coffee away for three days. She likes to return the favour of understanding, not just to Nino but everyone else. But this room, she thinks, is far beyond the reach of her understanding. Marinette stares at the glass chandelier perched along with the high ceiling and doesn’t think she’d like to calculate if it alone could pay her entire school tuition.

She’d wandered aimlessly throughout the endless hallways, the voices of the crowd echoing behind her now mere whispers in the face of her indifference. She blames the alcohol but then again, she always does and really that wasn’t fair to the paintings which were the real cause of her spiralling away. If Marinette were sober, she thinks she might not enter strangers’ bedroom and judge them for their ridiculous size. But she wasn’t and now she freely saunters around like this room and her are more than familiar with each other. The king-sized bed, she notes, looks like something straight from a home decor magazine. Office space is set up opposite to the bed and it must undeniably have been occupying someone’s stress because papers cover the whole of the area without arrangement. Marinette can hear the faint boom of Top 40 music from outside and she thinks the sound resonates with the thunder of ocean tides crashing and falling much like the rise and fall of her own breath when she spots the easel perched near the bedroom balcony. Curious, Marinette strides like her body is actually co-operating with her. Placing her bottle on a table nearby, she inspects like she’s meant to be doing it.

The canvas is blank but the supplies were neatly arranged along the table. The space feels frozen in time, like someone had paused just as they were to begin and never quite gotten to resume. Clumsily left on the paint tray are different shades of oil paints, untouched and lonely. Cleaned brushes are nearby like they’re new and upon closer inspection, Marinette realises they are. Marinette inhales, breaths in the familiar scent of turpentine she’d recognised from years of sitting in a Studio Arts classroom next to Nathaniel. She’s no painter, not like she was before, but she’s more than proficient in traditional painting because of the required classes. Marinette sits on the stool and feels invited in it despite the clear lack of welcome of the entire room.

And because of the sudden invitation, in some swift movement she doesn’t at all recall, she picks up a brush, ruthlessly dabs it into the bright flush of a red and smears it across it the innocent canvas without regal.

“Fuck.” she says out loud as soon as the paint meets the canvas. _ Oh shit._

_ Oh shit, shit, shit. _The mournful scarlet streak is right in front of her, bright as day in evidence and though its a colour, Marinette can’t help but think it’s screaming. The panic bubbles like champagne in her stomach but suddenly, just as champagne does, it settles into a fuzzy ease. Marinette laughs loud to herself. _ Fuck it. _

Marinette ditches her reflex to set the brush down and instead dabs a little of the red back into the canvas, marks the colour again in another direction like it has a purpose. The more the hair of the brush streaks the colour along, the more the colour sings to Marinette’s face instead of its shrill screech. Over time, the colours bloom until Marinette hears the canvas perform a complete melody enough that it rivals the roar of waves outside.

* * *

The thud is enough to knock Marinette out of her paint splatter of a state, she turns her head to the direction of the door and hears a muffle or two of a deep voice. The panic settles back into her body and unfortunately, she realises, it’s panic alone and there’s no champagne mixed in. Several thuds ensue by the time Marinette has scrambled to her feet; brush, paint and melody are long forgotten as she drops it to the table.

An escape route, yes, she needs an escape route. Yes, now. What about her drink? Oh God, her booze. Marinette furrows an eyebrow, seizes her bottle from the table and mindlessly gulps down the rest of the bottle’s content. Yes! Beer! Alcohol! Wait? No! She doesn’t have time for this shit! Marinette looks again to the enormous chandelier, sincerely wishing the billion carat diamond form of it all would just fall on her head, knocking her out. Instead, she scans the ground, grimaces as she ducks down low undignified and crawls to the bottom of the Instyle-looking king-sized bed. She’s thinking if the chandelier does actually plan on killing her, the bed might just be her salvation.

The door opens wide and the volume from outside adjusts to something loud and obnoxious. Marinette spots the Nike shoes thudding its way across the room and simultaneously calculates the price of the medical bill she’ll have to face if her heart doesn’t stop drumming violently against her chest. The figure paces around the room like it’s just as curious as she once was. A moment passes before the sound of the creak from the bottom of the bed rings in Marinette’s ears as the person lands on top. Her throat threatens to squeak out a sound in surprise before she suppresses it.

Marinette thinks if she wasn’t the one in her position, she might find all of this awfully funny. But because she’s the one in her position, Marinette eyes the opened door. She wonders if maybe, just maybe, she could just crawl, go into some kind of lizard mode that her 3-year-old self had prepared her for anyway. The fact that she’s drunk is making the plan sound a lot like a Nino Plan and the fact that it sounds like a Nino Plan has Marinette itching to execute it as not badly as possible. She waits for a prolonged five minutes before she dares to move a muscle. Four minutes later, she hears the faint sound of snoring and is fucking grateful for it.

She executes the plan, wills herself to crawl her way through the spotless carpet in silence. Arms extending out as she slithers her way, the noise outside gets louder with every inch closer to the door. By the time she reaches it, her body moves at the pace of a ghost as she heaves herself up in excruciating slow motion. Marinette doesn’t take a chance, doesn’t turn her head in the case she might make some unintended noise. Instead, she takes a slow breath in, treads lightly back outside and hears the echo of the waves from the narrow hallways.

* * *

Nino reprimands her in the Uber. He also kind of does it in the dancefloor when he’d found her and nearly knocked several bottles over as he trudged his way over her drunken ass screaming the lyrics to Selena Gomez. He’d said something like what the fuck Marinette and she’d wailed out the second verse of Selena Gomez’ song in response. It’s a bad Selena Gomez themed haze from then on and Marinette does not remember anything beyond the audible thump of her own body in the back of the Uber whilst she makes out Nino apologising profusely to the driver. She bawls a little at this.

“No!” she hiccups, once or twice, “Wheeeere are we goiiiing?”

Nino turns his head from the passenger seat and Marinette thinks he’s going to say something disapproving again but he just chuckles. “We’re going home.”

Marinette thinks she does not like to be laughed at. “Nooooooo.”

God! She hadn’t even been kissed! Hadn’t even made out with anyone! Marinette places a light finger to her lips and mourns the lack of a kiss to her lips. That was so illegal! “I am very kissable!”

Nino just laughs again, “Find anyone to be very kissable with?”

Marinette narrows her eyebrows. Huh. Did she? She doesn’t recall a single kissable lip on her. A goddamned shame. God, what had she been doing? She was very kissable, damnit! What the hell was she doing not being kissed?

Marinette’s mind wanders to important things like puff pastries and croissants. She was over this night, she hadn’t been kissed and if she had been, it must've have been so bland her mind just threw the damn memory away. So Marinette hums a tune in blissful peace, wonders what she might do tomorrow about her maroon vs. re-

“Stop the car, I’m going to throw up.” Marinette chokes out. From the rearview mirror, the Uber driver just sort of sighs like he's considering he might throw up too.

The flash of red lingers its way back into Marinette’s mind at the speed of lightning or thunder or motorcycles or something dangerous and clearly over the speed limit. A Lamborghini probably. The blank canvas and how not very blank it was in its state in Adrien Agreste’s house. In the midst of her alcohol scented mist, the image of the painting taunts her. The hour of painting had seemed so far away like it was months ago and oh God, Marinette was going to go to prison for trespassing or something. She’ll go to prison and wear a bad shade of orange like it’s some kind of sick punishment for the array of colours she’d slashed mercilessly across the canvas.

“Oh my god.” she whispers to herself. “Shit.”

The car reluctantly stops near the side of the road. Marinette yanks open the car door, ducks her head down low and does, indeed, throw up.


	2. Ruby

The ceiling was floating. Or something. It was definitely doing something. It definitely wasn’t Adrien, it was the ceiling. _Correction_, Adrien thinks as he rises, muscles aching, _it was the alcoholic whatever-it-was drink_.

Adrien’s eyes open to the world around him he at least knows, the sun playfully peeks out from his window’s drapes. The bright light is much too cinematic to be the morning aftermath of a hangover.

Adrien blinks, then does it twice like it’ll roll the headache away. The soft plush of his pillows were really too appealing not to lean himself back down and go into a fulfilling two day coma. The Floating Ceiling Issue was not thankfully an issue, he realises, once he’d shut his eyes. But the ungodly speaker connected to his phone has other plans, of course it does. Adrien internalises a deep groan throughout the surreal ten seconds into Taylor Swift’s ‘You Belong with Me’.

Chloe had set it as the ringtone for her number years,—decades, even—ago to the point where Adrien has felt himself flinch anytime Taylor Swift just occurs in his life. One time, he’d broken a coffee cup from the reflex of grabbing his phone when the music video appeared on his TV. Chloe had just laughed at his misery the same way she chuckles as he reluctantly accepts the call, hand straining as it reaches for the bedside table.

“Would you look at that babe, the party animal is up.” she announces. From the distant background, he faintly hears Alya saying something like wow, I genuinely thought he died. “How are you, munchkin?”

Adrien’s head buzzes. Does he know how he is? Let alone how he was—as a munchkin? So he settles into something comfortable like, “Good, wanna throw up though.”

“I expect nothing less considering you went M.I.A for, like, half of your own party.”

Adrien pulls a face at that, “What are the reviews?”

“What do you expect?” she sighs, “The host ran missing by the second hour and the beer was too obscure because you wanted to try some fancy Italian brand.”

Adrien grimaces a little, makes a note to cross out the brand from future endeavours. “So what? We’re just hating on Italian beer now?”

He hears a muffled noise, a tone of Alya’s voice clear before Chloe says, “Alya says you should’ve just listened to her and gotten Coronas like a normal person.”

“Coronas don’t fit my house’s colour scheme.” he mumbles.

‘Your entire house isn’t really fit for a party but you’re still doing it to this day.” Chloe retorts.

Adrien rolls his eyes, ignores the pang of truth in her comments. So what if everyone always gets confused on Google Maps to find his house? It wasn’t his fault Google Maps sucked.

“But..” Chloe starts, something like sympathy in her voice, “Everyone had a great time in the early 2000’s song throwback and the dances looked terrible enough for me to know people were feeling good. Stop thinking about people getting lost in Google Maps, it’s Google’s fault.”

Chloe always seemed to be able to locate all the tiny little thoughts that rummaged in his head like it was a library she’d explore too often so Adrien grins.

He lets himself ease up a little, lets the short silence fill in his thoughts of when the cleaners are going to arrive to take care of last night’s havoc and what beer should rightfully occupy his house next party.

He knows they’re not the humblest thoughts in the world but he could stand to take advantage of his family’s wealth if it means he can shove off the weight of his responsibilities for the messy two hours or so.

“Are you thinking of next party’s beer or today’s training session?”

In the lull of his mindless thoughts, Adrien feels his body react violently to Chloe’s words, shooting upwards as his mind recalls the very, very near 1:30PM training session scheduled. Adrien’s head feels like it’s threatening to break, eyeing the painful violence of the 1:12PM displaying on his alarm.

Adrien groans, hands to his face like the more he’ll rub, the more chance he’ll magically appear before the soccer field, energised and showered to the point where the stench of the booze has worn off him.

“God, why didn’t you start the call with that?” he groans, eyes hovering to the ceiling.

“Why, Captain Adrien of Françoise Dupont University, that suggests that Captain Adrien Agreste of the Françoise Dupont University’s Tigers, is not capable of handling his own schedule and getting to his training session on time.”

“Seriously,” Adrien sighs as he hurriedly flings the cover off, ignoring the ache of his body from whatever god awful dance moves he was pulling last night, “Fuck you guys.”

Chloe’s laugh reverberates throughout his room as he enters his closet, grabbing what he hopes is his uniform—as long as it resembles it, right?—to wear before slinging his duffel bag to his shoulder. Adrien mumbles profanities like he’s reciting poetry.

Alya’s voice booms, “We’ve done this, like, how many times now?”

Instead of answering, Adrien curses as he swings a drawer open, frantic in the search for a pair of socks. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Language, young man.”

Adrien thinks he can hear a chorus of angels as he spots an elusive pair of white socks nestled in the sacred realm of the edge of the closet floor. Alya laughing seemed to be the current fitting soundtrack of his life as he seizes the pair, making his way out of the closet.

Adrien grimaces. Calling an Uber, from experience, is futile. The traffic will probably curse his entire effort to even get out of the house. What if he runs? Adrien raises an eyebrow at himself.

He’ll likely be cursing himself for running to the field. Yes, it’s about an approximate 10 minute speed chase. God, he’s not claiming to be Usain Bolt which means he’s probably not going to be delivering Usain Bolt level results either. But Adrien thinks he might have Usain Bolt determination so he takes three tentative deep breaths like it’s going to prepare him for it.

From his closet, he can hear Chloe sigh a distinctive sigh over the speakers, the one she does when she knows him a little too well like that time he’d told them he wouldn’t do a Milan photoshoot because it clashed with his exams.

(It couldn’t be helped. His speech had already sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than he was announcing anything to them. Alya had just said it was his choice. And it scared him a little. Because it had been—too truthfully for his own liking—his choice.

Yeah. Whatever. All he knows is she’d done the sigh and like it was inevitable, Adrien ended up agreeing to do the photoshoot two days later.)

He feels himself gulp a little when he hears Chloe say “You’re going to try to run, aren’t you?”

Adrien willfully tugs a sock to his feet and knows his silence answers the question. Whatever, he’s going to Usain Bolt it. You can Usain Bolt anything if you’re painfully late and desperate enough, right?. So Adrien pulls himself to his feet and hopes his stance looks like something confident and ready as he steps out of the closet.

“Not saying I’m the next Usain Bolt or anything, but—”

The vehemence of red seizes him before Adrien can have a chance to finish whatever he plans to say to convince Chloe, Alya or himself he can make it to practice on time. Sucking in a breath, his eyes scour the easel as if it were new and free of the days it’d been perched along his balcony, longing for some calloused hands to wander near its paint brushes.

The hues streaked along hot-tempered, following the leadership of ruby red, the rare kind. Dancing along edges of the painting as if it were singing a song. A raging melody, performing flickers of music he feels like he can touch in the still air as it passes by, the golden colour marching along like a band yielding instruments that haven’t been created yet for anyone else but him to hear.

Hysterical for a spare four seconds, Adrien sincerely wonders if he’s watching a ballet within the castle of his own room, within the four walls that have known him well as both himself and a stranger. It’s so loud, overbearingly loud, but his heart feels swollen and red and golden against the midnight blue the way the canvas screams. A minute feels so long, passing like it hasn’t been years. It’s so unfair, he thinks, that a minute passes like it hasn’t been years since he’s watched his mother’s hand be one with a brush, swaying colours along a canvas like it’s her own orchestra.

He can hear the faint tick of the clock nearby. Chloe’s voice is faint because all he hears is wave after roaring wave, an orchestra co-ordinating a melody that rings in his ears so fervently he is so sure the rest of the city can hear it. Adrien thinks Chloe might be calling out to him, something about being late, something else like his name repeated several times. He wonders if that’s caused by the lack of his answer?

He can’t even afford to think about how a stranger had obviously entered his room, because, _God_, were they the most talented trespasser he would ever come to know. And _oh_, Adrien just _has_ to find out who did this. He has to applaud whoever might be responsible for every stroke of painstaking hue. He just has to. He can hardly bear the thought of never knowing.

Adrien wants to breath. Feeling like he has to ask permission from a canvas in his own room to breath is a little alarming.

“Holy shit.”

* * *

A flash of an ugly, muddy brown substance is what Marinette feels herself wide awake to. She wasn’t new to throwing up from simple-minded overindulgence of alcohol, but she was new to the Uber driver charging them extra for it. Marinette remembers that she’d protested against it like it was her money instead of Nino’s that was taking them home.

God, it had been so easy to slip into the persona of some kind of Harvard graduate of a lawyer when one is confidently intoxicated. Barely stifling a groan into the palm of her hand, Marinette wills for the memory of the rest of her arguments to fade away.

She winces again, eyes now bare to her room around her. A generous glass of water stood responsibly tall at her bedside table in the way Marinette can make out Nino’s condolences for her lost brain cells. She gulps it all down.

Marinette steps out and slides into whatever clothing is readily available within close proximity. She defty groans at the laggard weight of her own body and yawns to the sight of Nino and a pair of sunny-side eggs when she’d make her way down the apartment stairs.

“Look at you, Sleeping Beauty.” he greets, barely offering a glance. Marinette would be offended if she herself wasn't so convinced she looked like shit. 

“Just finish the eggs already.” she grimaces, pointedly staring at a singular cloudy outside. It looks vaguely like a spaceship and Marinette thinks about UFO’s, not her classes.

“You wouldn’t even be alive without me.”

Marinette agrees. So she sets a plate down in the kitchen island, pulls an easy smile and doesn’t give a counter-argument. He wacks her arm with a fork without much effort.

“You heading to classes today?” he asks, grabbing a piece of toast.

Marinette thinks about it for three remarkable seconds. “Why not?”

“That’s the most optimistic thing you’ve said all month.”

“No, it’s a genuine question.”

Nino gives her a look like he might wack her again. “If you’re scavenging for reasons why you shouldn’t attend classes, find someone else. I only go rogue on school when I’m drunk and I think I can make it in Miami as a club DJ.”

“I’m not.” Marinette stares a little at too much butter on his toast. Frowns at it. “You’d make a fantastic Miami club DJ.”

“Anyone thinks they’re a fantastic Miami club DJ when they’re drunk enough.”

“Give me a reason why I should go to classes,” Marinette urges like she hasn’t already made up her mind. “And I’ll give you a reason why you’d make a great Miami club DJ.”

“You haven’t figured out that maroon crisis yet.” Nino starts without a sweat, “And your final highschool speech for English was about the ethical and legal breaches of Ivy League schools selling out to rich families.”

Marinette snorts. A vivid memory of her smaller figure on stage, chanting what could only be the poetically prosed equivalent of ‘eat the rich’. Her teacher had given her an A.

“So?” she says, raising a challenging eyebrow. Nino looks up at her unimpressed, like he’s already bored of whatever he has to say.

“Dude, everyone knows you’re going to Dupont out of spite.” he says as he chews, “Your parents know. My parents know. Man, I’m pretty sure, like, my grandma knows.”

“Taking up a scholarship is not out of spite.”

“C’mon. You and I both know somewhere in there,”--he points the butter knife over to the vague area of Marinette’s heart--”you got some kind of edgy grudge to Dupont’s rich kids. Frankly, it’s lowkey sadistic if I have any time to psychologically analyse it but I’m not one to comment.”

“You just did.”

“Whatever! Student life is already capitalist and weird!” Nino performs a flurry of disorganised hand gestures like it solidifies his point. It does.

Marinette realises it does when she allows herself to think about her long nights ruminating on her work, pondering on how much time people like Chloe Bourgeois might also be spending on their work when it seems like the only thing of prominence in their lives was what they should drink on the weekend.

“You’re good at that.” she mutters.

“What?” Nino quirks an eyebrow. She imitates his hand gestures in response.

“Ah.”

Marinette sighs woefully, grabbing a toast for herself, “That’s why you’d make a good Miami club DJ.”

* * *

In hindsight, Adrien is aware he probably should’ve brushed up on his fake diarrhea noises before he attempted what he had hoped would be his Oscar nominated performance in the toilets.

Twenty minutes into practice had been entirely too much. Dribbling the ball, Adrien would realise, was now a concept he was entirely new to. Despite his legs attuning every muscle to its twenty year collection of memories. The field was near barren; save for the team, a few supporters, coach D’Argencourt face-palming at Adrien at alarming rates and Adrien himself.

Sprinting to the field and joining the team with some half-assed apology, Adrien proceeds to stare into the abyss of anything remotely red his eyes would land on; the shirt of a supporter along the edge of the field, a pole, Ivan’s sock. Ivan had already shot him several confused frowns. 

Five laps. Five long, barbaric laps around the wide field at the start of every practice.

It was grueling and Adrien used to unabashedly like it before his whole stranger-painted-in-my-room ordeal. He liked the cruel strain on his legs, wholeheartedly replacing any thoughts in his head loud or small. He liked the raw adrenaline and how his heart seemed to pump louder than any speaker or mob of paparazzi or order of his Father. He liked how mindless, how unapologetic it was.

_Run_. That’s all it ever asked for.

But now the situation has changed. And not a single thunderous clap of his heart was replacing the overzealous hues he was seeing everywhere. As if the painting had transported from its home on a canvas to every fucking synapse in his head. It was as brutal as each lap. It was as terrifying. And oh God, his patience was faltering. 

By the third lap, Adrien was panting at absolutely nothing. He grit his teeth. He was fast. Faster than most of the team save for a select few. He usually kept a blank look when he did his laps, but now he was restlessly bothered and out of breath.

“Yo Adrien!” he hears someone, probably Kim, call out, “Great party last night!”

After Kim, he hears a few other cheers with similar sentiments. Adrien barely turns his head to the left to spot Kim waving at him for a distance, running at his own pace of the lap. He nods, attempts to maybe smile at the others as he jogs. It fails.

Was he going to throw up? It seemed like such an opportune time.

“Hey, Adrien? Adrien!” he hears someone else, probably Ivan and his sock, call out, “Dude! Are you okay?”

He is decidedly not okay.

Decidedly, Adrien is suddenly aware of his lack of breakfast, the hangover he was _suppose_ to be having and the night before. Decidedly, his stomach has also finalised the plan to physically catch up on the schnapps, shots and whatever-it-was of said night.

Adrien’s legs begin to sedate, a move he thinks probably won’t earn him anything good from the coach. Clutching his stomach, he winds down pitifully as if he were in slow motion. Frankly, the thought of passing out at the field in the middle of soccer practice is offending him, reputation and dignity wise. So Adrien turns back from the overwhelming blur of callouts of his name. He begrudgingly picks himself up, whirling an opposite direction to dash to what he vaguely hopes is the en route towards the glory of the toilets.

He gets as far as a measly two yards before crouching down low to his knees.

He does, indeed, throw up.

* * *

As for the Oscar-nominated performance.

Well, it was definitely nominated, Adrien wearily thinks. Probably not for an Oscar though. Or anything distinguished for that matter.

Adrien solidifies these thoughts as he sat, defeated, in the toilet seat. He wasn’t even using it. But he hoped every god-awful grunt and award-winning diarrhea noise he was intensely performing like it was his own Broadway show was making a show as if he was. He'd hoped this show would be convincing enough to also completely eradicate the possibility of explaining the part where he'd churn out most of his booze-infested guts out on the field. 

If Coach D’Argencourt didn’t buy his performative bullshit, he wasn’t mentioning it.

“Bleeurghhhhh” Adrien vocal chords produce intelligently.

“Adrien, are you alright?” the coach asks outside the stalls.

No, he isn’t alright. On the contrary, Adrien thinks he might die.

He coughs loudly, “I-uh. I must’ve eaten something bad last night.”

Coach D’Argencourt sighs heavily, like he can’t believe it. “Head to the infirmary near the building 60 down the block, Agreste. Don’t show up to my field if you can’t run in my field.”

Adrien replies a steady yes coach before he hears the footsteps walking out getting further and further away. Once he’s sure he’s left alone, he jerks his phone out of his pocket to his ear, barely tapping once because she’s on speed dial.

It is picked up from three rings.

“Alya, I need you to get me the schedule for Fine Arts.”

* * *

Nino’s ringtone buzzes as Marinette paints a single stroke of aquamarine acrylic into the canvas. She hastily picks it up, lazily plopping it between her shoulder and ear.

Usually classes were a little quieter but most classes had now descended to chatter and paint since her teacher’s recent emergency leave. Phone calls in class were now commonplace instead of luxury. Marinette had supervised as TA along with a substitute, but no one had really done anything out of line so she’d resolved to keep to herself to enjoy the peace.

“What’s up?”

Nino footsteps descending down the thump of familiar stairs were loud and clear. “I finished my first class today and have some time to pick up groceries. You want anything?”

Marinette picked up a palette knife, scraping gently onto the canvas, “Yeah, could you pick up some kimchi at Tikki’s? We ran out last night. Also, bread.”

“Ah, bread.”

“Wholemeal.”

“No. Wholegrain.”

“What is up with you and your bread? They are all the damn same.”

Marinette could beg--with a persuasive powerpoint presentation--to differ. She wonders about suggesting a bread powerpoint presentation night before Nino’s voice suddenly booms within the line.

“Adrien!” A pause. “Yo, Adrien!”

Marinette’s heart seizes at the name. The paintbrush she'd picked up is frozen in mid-air, landing on an awkward spot near the subject’s mouth. She grimaces.

Nino calls his name out several times, apparently to no avail.

“Damn, that boy is fast.” Nino mutters.

Marinette’s forward creases. The familiar mantra of _shit shit shit_ was suddenly looming in her head. “What do you mean?”

“He just zoomed past Building 80 like a man on a marathon. Looks like he’s heading towards Building 9.”

Marinette’s paintbrush is now entirely forgotten._ No no no no no no no no no no. No._

Adrien Agreste cannot be heading towards Building 9. _Marinette_ was in Building 9. This wasn’t--God, this was not the time for Adrien fucking Agreste to suddenly dig up some artistic epiphany he had. 

“I--”

Nino cuts Marinette off before she could panic, by panicking himself, “Oh shit! The bus is here. I gotta go. Shit, shit, shi-”

The call ends and Marinette yelps out an involuntary sound of anguish.

As if on cue, a door slides open, hushing the room into whispers.

_Shit._

* * *

Adrien Agreste sweeps into the damn Fine Arts room and looks like he belongs there. Marinette is so sure she’d like to die at any moment now.

Her stress-induced daylight hallucinations had already been filled with a mirage of unfulfilled deadlines and her teacher telling her a shade looks wrong-ish (it’s always ‘ish’ with Marinette. It’s never fully, properly wrong—instead it leans towards it. Marinette wishes she could set herself on fire.) but now it was starting to add to its collection the jail bars, prisoner outfits and Adrien Agreste pointing a finger at her to guide the police behind him who will arrest her.

‘This is her.” she thinks he’d say, “The one who trespassed my bedroom at my high budget frat party and thought it was a good idea to Bob Ross it out.”

_Yes_, Marinette thinks hysterically, that’s exactly what he’d say and because he’s got that infuriatingly symmetrical face attached to his lean body, there’s nothing on this earth that could possibly convince the police or the rest of the population otherwise. Marinette is fucked.

Marinette is convinced a deranged laugh is threatening to crawl out of her throat so she gulps it down with the rest of the can of Red Bull on her desk. One gulp in and she faintly realises this move makes her look like the exact person who could be a culprit.

The Fine Arts room isn’t a stranger to visitors of any kind who mindlessly walk around when students are in this particular painting room. Adrien himself is not exactly alone, Marinette notes as she spots five other visitors roaming.

It had been Dupont’s shiny model of artistic constructive criticism for years. Unnerving, but pointlessly brave enough for it to be one of those things the school raved on about as revolutionary.

From the corner of her eye, Adrien is leaning towards someone—Juleka, who laughs kindly at something he has said. He looks at ease, so horrifyingly soft in his grey wool sweater that for a moment, Marinette almost thinks he looks curious. His eyes lounge around people’s artwork and usually—and Marinette knows this—students are often uncomfortable with people peeking over their shoulder, defensive.

But he wanders around carefully, like he’s vaguely aware not to touch some portion of gravity and he’s rewarded by a wave of relative calm towards his presence. Quietly, he mutters a kind compliment or two to people and is met by smiles. Marinette wonders if he’s practiced this; practiced this gravitational pull towards his own that makes people like art students un-robotically respond to his being. It’s so natural that Marinette almost forgets that he’s probably here to arrest her.

He navigates around a plethora of a few sneakily watchful eyes or undivided attention towards chartered strokes of acrylic paint, like each movement was precisely aligned with every measure of the canvases. Fine Art students, Marinette knows all too well, are just like that.

Like their eyes have already fine tuned every move their hands make. She takes a spare glance at Adrien’s attentive eyes, mesmerized, and thinks a little smugly to herself. Most Fine Arts students, Marinette also knows, occupy the room through the sheer willpower of hefty scholarships, ones fueled by each students’ painstaking long hours into the night like Marinette’s own.

It’s all too easy for Marinette to feel a little pride over it with her rock bottom lack of knowledge on the topic on Adrien Agreste’s life and much less how he’d been accepted into Dupont. So Marinette intentionally picks that prejudice, much like Nino has predicted she inclines to. She thinks about his words to her that morning over over-buttered toast and frowns a little at it.

By the time Marinette has died down her dreaded anticipation of her arrest, eyes landing back on her own painting, Adrien begins to shift uncomfortably, like he’s been caught overstaying his welcome. Smiling sheepishly, he now tiptoes through the room like he’s afraid the ground beneath him will crack, a sort of oil painted hellscape.

She might’ve laughed about it if she weren’t so suddenly panicked at the horrid sight of His Majesty’s gaze and footsteps directed towards her own. She eyes Adrien shifting his attention towards her in slow motion and briefly wonders if the police guards are outside the room, waiting for his cue. She sucks in a breath; probably the last breath of fresh clean air beyond prison walls?

It’s a terrible sight really, Marinette can’t help but maniacally giggle about it internally. Adrien fucking Agreste, whose hair looks like it’s performing a live Pantene commercial, whose skin looks like the exemplary end product of 10-step Korean skin routines, whose sweater is subtly yet blaringly embroided with a Yves Saint Laurent design, whose lids flicker to reveal what can only be emerald eyes. The perfectly timed pace of his leisurely cinematic stroll to Marinette seems like a rhythm that could’ve only been practiced in runways. The faultless. terrifyingly quintessential being sauntering over to her to commit an act that can only be received with mortification.

He is so perfect. So, so perfect that Marinette wants to strangle him. Wants to chip away every little measured rhythm he’s practiced, so he can arrest her the way she wants him to. Imperfectly. She flares her nose and imagines it for the spare three seconds she has; a deformed sight of Dupont’s model, screaming at the top of his lungs like he’s got some fight in him, like he’s daring to disturb the perfectly civilised environment of mild-mannered art students.

Marinette snorts like she’s got the time to be humoured about it because she realises she’d like it very much if for once, Agreste would just _not_ be so nice. Like a toothpaste commercial abruptly ending. Like a note off-key. Something unsung, something unforeseen. A startling unpredictability so he’d be trespassing the confines of whatever script he seems to carry around. It would humour her, yes it would. It would act as her sufficient material to laugh about in prison. So Marinette puts the brush down, sighs like it’s the end of her life, and dares him to.

When Adrien finally reaches her, he smiles warily and subsequently flashes his perfect white teeth. God, _god._ Marinette wants to scream.

“Marinette, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Adrien.”

“I know.”

Marinette ignores his pleased grin.

She momentarily glances at the eraser propped near the easel and thinks about vigorously rubbing away the walking toothpaste commercial.

For some reason, that gives her the brevity of the act of sighing again and saying:

“Listen, if you think you can watch me paint or anything, I just want to make it clear that I’m not that keen on people watching me do my work. I know that’s like, illegally rude to say to you, but as far as I know, you’re the one who barged in here so you might as well follow Art Room etiquette.”

A beat.

Adrien is frozen, like he needs to process every syllable for five minutes each. Marinette’s mouth clamps into a hard, thin line and she’d really rather not like to process anything she’d just said but she thinks she likes this look on Adrien Agreste. Much better than his plastered smile in the runways of lecture hall stairs are the lines on his face indicating a sort of confusion Marinette thinks he’s unfamiliar with.

He composes himself after a grand total of 5 seconds.

5 seconds too late for it to save him. “Okay.”

Marinette nods. Likes this answer. Likes it a lot.

Adrien shifts back to the opposite direction. Scurries off to some unarmed students dying to be complimented, and with the way Agreste’s voice is the poster child of charmed genuinity, Marinette is sure he will deliver.

Before she picks the brush up again, her eyes spot the small red patch of colour on his varsity jacket as he shifts to the side. It stains deep red, unrefined, and hilariously off-centre in its shape on his right jacket arm. Marinette thinks it might be the most imperfect thing Adrien Agreste’s got to offer.

Curious, Marinette purses her lips. She can take this, this clumsy pool of hue on fabric over the rest of Adrien Agreste. So she dips her brush in an awfully familiar red.

Lands an equally uncharted stroke of the brush on the canvas.

* * *

“I mean, she was right.”

Adrien bites the last portion of his blueberry muffin like it’s an act of violence.

His voice waffles through as he speaks with a mouthful. “Shwee couwl’ve stud to ve..”

Alya rolls her eyes at him from her desk. “What? Nice?”

Adrien chews on his muffin and vigorously nods, hopeful to convey his deep mortification at Fine Arts Girl’s Speech. It had been so impactful that he’d proposed a meeting to de-stress in his house, immediately.

Every detail from the one minute and thirty second interaction was chewing at him. Yes, he’d briskly stroll away like it hadn’t bothered him too much, but then again he’d trekked his way over to his house with a little stomp to his feet.

Because how dare she? He’d only wanted to say hi, for fuck’s sake. And she looked a little curious at his presence and Adrien, well, Adrien likes to talk. Likes it when he peaks their interest when he can tell, even if it’s just for a bit.

Yes, she seemed quieter, eyes wandering around the room like she can’t make up her mind to look at him in his interruption or her painting. But The Speech had been uttered as if it were a mantra, entrancing Adrien to shoo away his presence. Shoo. Adrien is going insane.

Chloe inspects her baby blue nails, half-done. She tips the nail brush wand in the bottle of what Adrien knows is an overpriced nail polish brand. She huffs, dissatisfied with her application or something.

“Well, I understand, Adrikins,” she murmurs, eyes never leaving her third nail, “But it’s not like you RSVP’d your fabulous trip to the Fine Arts room. You did barge in.”

Adrien’s brows knot together, incredulous. He’s almost afraid it will etch lines into his face because he’s been doing it too much for the past hour.

“I didn’t! That room is one of those you’re supposed to barge in! And since when have you been the voice of reason?”

Chloe just shrugs, “Since you practically ditched training through to bullshit running over to the Fine Arts class like Van Gogh is suddenly alive again and exhibiting there.”

Alya snorts, “Look, you’re not gonna magically figure out who painted it after one Disney lock of eyes with someone in some art room.”

She glances at the aforementioned painting. Adrien does the same. He’d explained everything to both through some leftover cheesecake. Alya seemed half-convinced. Chloe thought it was calculatingly ‘Prince Charming’ of him. ‘Like the glass slipper, but visually and metaphorically unattached to feet.’ she’d said, cutting into his own slice of cake.

Adrien slumps a little, “But, it’s not like I can’t have recognised some elements of their style!”

“Dude, it was a party. People were drunk.” Alya reasons out. She takes one look at his face and sighs, “Look, the painting is beautiful Adrien. It really is. But Fine Arts students are students, they’re likely taught techniques to go by a certain way and it’s hard to pick out everyone apart, especially when this is practically abstract.”

“It’s like what I said about the feet, you know.” Chloe mutters from the side. “What? It’s true. Everyone’s feet are different but in the end it’s just feet. Prince Charming was weird. Cinderella was probably what? A size six? Who knows how many size six feet were in that kingdom.”

Alya turns back to Adrien, “If you wanna avoid future feet psychoanalysis, I suggest you just lay low on this a little and do it bit by bit.”

“How do you lay low on something as ambiguous as this?” Adrien groans, then adds, “As far as I can tell, Prince Charming issued a nationwide feet inspection in hopes of a girlfriend.”

Without looking up, Chloe says, “He did do that, babe.”

“We are not issuing anything out as inspired by Prince Charming and we are not going further with this feet thing.” Alya retorts, “Just find out quietly. Make out with them or whatever when you do. Ugh, you are honestly infuriatingly ominous with your love interests. I bet this was just some tipsy dumbass who happened to turn into Da Vinci overnight and woke up not knowing what paint was.”

“What a romance!” Chloe drawls.

“So what do you suggest I do?” he asks quietly.

The room could use some music. Something sad and mournful and heart shatteringly romantic.

“I don’t know!” Alya waves both hands up in a flurry, “Just...what if there was someone who knew every person?”

“The teacher, duh.” Chloe quips.

Adrien sighs, “The Fine Arts teacher they have is new. Only been around for two weeks because their one is on some emergency leave. I hardly think this one knows anything of the individual students’ work that much.”

“What about other members of the Arts facility staff?”

“Too broad.” he says, “Plus, I don’t know, I don’t actually wanna...show the actual art work to people.”

“What?” his friends say in unison.

Adrien pulls himself back, nitpicking his words.

“It’s just--I just--I don’t know!” he starts, flailing his arms. “I feel like it’s not...good. Like I’m exposing--showing--something I’m not supposed to be showing to people.”

There’s a beat of silence. An invitation for more. So Adrien continues, “I just get this feeling that whoever painted this probably painted in this room alone. It’s private, or..personal. And I know, it’s my room or whatever. But…” he pauses, thinking, “This is theirs. And even though it's my canvas, it’s not me or mine.”

Adrien runs over what he’d just said for a moment and ends up thinking it’s right.

“Well, you were always respectfully romantic, Adrikins.” Chloe says finally, “It only makes sense, I guess.”

“I get your point.” Alya nods, “What if there was an unofficial supervisor to help you. Someone who had been with the class before the leave. The TA or something?.”

Adrien blinks, “Wait. I think there was one. I’ve never met them though. Juleka said they ran supplementary beginner classes on the way here”

“You should talk to them. It sounds like they’ve stuck around. They help with classes so they should be plenty familiar with the rest of the students.”

Adrien nods. It’s a good plan. But.

“How do I even go about it though? Just say ‘Hey, I just wanted to enquire about a specific art style from students narrowed down to find out the person who painted this masterpiece at my blowout party on Sunday?’”

From his bed, Chloe grunts and scrutinizes her left hand pinky finger, coloured a darker shade of blue. She scans the room before her; sighing she saunters on her feet near Adrien’s side. She leans down, and picks up a single blueberry muffin before standing upright.

“Easy.’ One bite into the muffin, “Just take the classes.” A second bite.

Adrien blinks twice, “What?”

Chloe rolls her eyes, “It’s not gonna kill you. Just take the classes with the TA. Talk about ‘being inspired by other styles’ or some artistic whatever and then weasel your way into touring the artwork.”

“You think they’ll let me do that?”

Chloe takes her third bite and stares at Adrien, scoffing. “Remember when you convinced our Biology teacher in highschool that walking for Louis Vuitton was more important than his final exam?”

Adrien does remember that. He’d gotten a B.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“What I’m trying to say is, if you can talk your way out of things. You should be able to talk your way into things.”

Adrien considers it, “Just...coax the PA into describing people’s art work?”

“Yes Adrien.” Chleo huffs, “I’m aware this is as morally ambiguous as stealing someone’s pen in third grade.”

Adrien quirks up an eyebrow but he’s considering it well. “Sounds...like it works.”

“Of course it does. It’s my plan.”

Alya makes a noise that sounds like both disapproval and acceptance as she rotates her desk chair to her computer. It’s the kind of noise she does when she doesn’t at all think whatever’s been proposed will work, but she also can’t find the strength within herself to argue against it.

“Whatever,’ she says, back facing them, “Ya’ll need Jesus.”

Alya is right so Adrien laughs, slumps back down the carpet and thinks to himself that the plan, God help it, will just have to do.

* * *

“The what?” Marinette squeaks into the phone.

“Your supplementary beginner painting classes.” the substitute repeats for the third time. If Marinette can’t align her head in the next second, she’s afraid there might be a fourth.

Marinette blankly stares into the nothingness of her sketchbook page. Her pencil had barely met the paper before her phone rang, blaring.

“Someone lodged in an application of interest. They’re hoping to meet as soon as possible, apparently. Tomorrow. 9.30, at best.” they continue.

Marinette feels the violence of each syllable from ‘nine-thirty’. “I--but--I haven’t taught that since last year.”

“Well, it’s a yearly thing, right?”

No, it is not a yearly thing, Marinette thinks, it’s an ‘I did it last year out of requirement and now I unofficially don’t have to do it this year’ thing.

Marinette places a hand on her forehead and feels the headache being cooked up in her head. Diced and minced and seasoned with her regrets of being the Fine Arts TA and the very object of a double degree in Fine and Studio Arts. Why had she been so artistically challenged and eager two years ago? Marinette stifled a groan.

“What--I--why?” 

Marinette hears the long-winded sigh through the phone and deeply relates, “I wouldn’t know. I’m as confused as you, to be honest. No one picks up stuff like this mid-way through the year.”

“Did they mention any details?”

“Not really. Just sent an email asking for the TA Beginner Art classes for students. I’ll forward it to you in the morning.”

Marinette closes her eyes and presses the hard lead of her pencil to the Moleskine paper. The rough edge meeting smooth surface is ironically symbolic. She opens her eyes to random lines on the page, uncoordinated. “Okay. Thank you. I’ll be there.”

The teacher murmurs a ‘all good’ and ‘thank you’ back and ends the call. As soon as it does, Marinette lets out what Nino has long described as her pterodactyl scream since they were children. Her best friend arrives on cue five minutes later, a plate of lasagna at bay like some kind of peace offering.

“Powerful horror movie scream material.” Nino comments as he walks in, “8/10. Could work on the bass though.”

He leaps on her bed, kicking his Nike shoes off. Marinette springs from the desk chair and accompanies him, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder as they lean against the wall. She picks up a fork and picks the lasagne apart, grimacing.

“Someone--someone so intensely stupid or whatever--picked up the beginner painting sessions.” she explains through a mouthful.

Nino quirks up an eyebrow, “I thought you only had to do it for TA requirements last year?”

“It’s a hellish yearly thing.” Marinette internally winces at the thought of next year.

“Ah. Could be good...maybe?” Marinette shoots him a look. He sighs, “I said maybe. I don’t know, it’s just--it's a beginner. Wouldn’t it be easy?”

Marinette just stares back at her window, the sun resigning, “It could. Granted I’m not teaching some asshole.”

Nino snorts, “It’s a beginner painting session, Mari. It’s the educational equivalent of a harmless puppy.”

“So?”

“What I’m saying is that assholes often don’t look to painting.” he concludes, “Unless it’s an anger management thing. If then, you should just direct them to art therapy.”

“It’s going to take up so much time.”

“Really?” he glances at her, “I think it’ll be fine.”

Marinette threatens to knock over his fork. “It’s because you’re not the one teaching it, dumbass.”

He just laughs, “I’m serious, I’m serious!” he straightens up a little, “You’ve been stressed lately. Even beyond ‘you’ standards. It’ll be calm, for you to do something easy and I don’t know, guided.”

Marinette feels herself slowly agreeing with him as she chews. Nino reaches over for his phone, connects it to the speaker nearby and blasts something by The Smiths Marinette can’t ever remember the title of. But it’s enough. Enough for Marinette to agree. Nino’s music blaring over her speakers has always been the final full stop to his arguments. Oddly effective at it too.

Marinette sways a little to the music, gladly eases up and says as the chorus kicks in, “Yeah. Maybe.”

* * *

Adrien is not a liar.

Well, he’s not a good one.

He’s figured this out pretty well throughout highschool where many of his days were littered with failed attempts to excuse himself of failed deadlines, clambering over the weeks leading up to runway nights, international flights to Godforsaken photoshoots.

His deadshot eyes, the weight of Gucci slacks that have to fit perfectly over toned knees, every miniscule detail on his face like the world might end if he even gets so much as a single blackhead. His face is like porcelain, many makeup artists would comment, and he usually wants to return a compliment but jetlag usually gets to him by the time he’s arrived on set and whisked away.

When Adrien first lied to his Physics teacher on the second week of classes during the last year of highschool, he’d fumbled over the words, winced at every direct syllable coming out of his mouth forming sentences that were not entirely accurate. It was usually the event of a ‘family thing’ he opted for to excuse things like 3am flights to Paris and 11:30am schedules to makeup and hair as soon as he would step off the plane.

Teachers would often just furrow eyebrows, but Adrien can’t help but wonder if it's because of his missed class time or if they just can’t believe the utter transparency in his lie. Chloe often snickered behind him, gingerly recording on her phone like its Comedy Central material.

Adrien now twists back to his left side on his bed. Alya and Chloe have long gone now, leaving him and the faint tune of a Queen song on his speakers alone. It was Alya’s pick. He’s turning like he can’t afford to lay still otherwise the room might freeze in time, and he’ll never wake up. Never know who did the painting and never move pass all 4 minutes and 58 seconds of ‘Somebody to Love’ by Queen.

It’s not like he’s lying to the TA. Well, _maybe_. But it’s a subjective thing, he argues against himself. His left cheeks dig into the white pillowcase, flushed and frustrated. Just because he’s taking art classes doesn’t mean he has...artistic intentions. It doesn’t mean the person has to know what his intentions are at all. In fact, maybe he will flash his Big Megawatt Smile and maybe someone will allow him to peer over the Art Backroom, the elusive garden of canvases on canvases of student work.

Maybe he’ll find it. He thinks about it; the backroom’s white noise evaporating when he’ll turn to face the right familiarity in a painting. And the orchestra, the symphony will gather again, filling up his ears through stacks of golden, blue and red hues prancing around the rough surface of the canvas. He’ll know and then he’ll probably black out and someone will get confused but it probably won’t matter then because he’ll know.

And _that_, Adrien thinks firmly just as Freddie Mercury wonders if anybody can find him somebody to love in chorus, will be worth the lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> damn i have not updated in a whole minute. here's to adrien's puke and marinette's stubbornness! :>


	3. Fuchsia

Marinette isn’t lucky.

But she didn’t think she was exactly drowning in the worst the universe has to offer.

It was like this;

Her parents made enough to support her, but Marinette paid her portion of the rent herself. The dreadful handful of her paintings do have that one off-colour thing to it, but her teachers often summarised them as ‘good, with a chance to be great’. She was good at cycling in laundry every week, but she was—as Nino describes—’shit at folding clothes’. Her first preference, Kingsley College, with its repertoire for Fine Arts, was great. But her second preference (and the one she’d gotten into), the prestigious Francoise Dupont, was also, considerably, great. She flips her pancakes too late for it to be the right shade like in the recipe’s video, but it’s not burnt.

And if there was a 8:58am train. Well. At least there was 9:00am scheduled?

“Shit!” Marinette scrambles along the last steps of the subway.

The 8:58 train glides without a hitch, doors fiercely shut. It moves along, without Marinette and her agony. Marinette pulls a face and she doesn’t know if it’s at the train, herself or the image of the third pancake she insisted on wasting time making because the other two didn’t look right.

This was going to be way too long of a day.

* * *

Adrien is lucky.

That’s why he saunters out his apartment complex and feels more than a few pairs of eyes on him. The paparazzi don’t waste a second, hollering and aiming cameras like hunters to their fresh-faced prey. They can’t afford to lose the momentum during all of Adrien Agreste’s 8.5 second stroll to a tinted car parked in front of his flashy New York penthouse.

Truth be blatantly told, he knows he isn't terrible to look at. He is raised to be hyperaware of it; modelling contracts in front of his bare fourteen-year-old face forced him to be painfully aware.

At sixteen, Louis Vuitton made a show of him walking in their runway in their latest press release. By twenty, he’d dated the share of young actresses, actors and models, all horrifyingly attractive to the point where Chloe had asked if he was just compiling his own list of ‘Top Ten Most Beautiful People on Earth’. At twenty two, a TMZ reporter said he’d actually been voted amongst that list.

He sat at the fifth spot. Wedged between Gigi Hadid (his friend) and Keira Knightley (his friend’s ex).

At number 7 was Chloe Bourgeois, former child actor and oh-so-cute-childhood-best-friend-or-are-they-more-wink-wink-of-Adrien Agreste, a TMZ journalist had unimaginatively written.

On social media, there was a raging debate whether Chloe wearing his jacket in August meant Love Was In The Air, Scorning The Great Scandalised Lesbian Love Affair Of Cholya (Chloe and Alya’s apparent pair name. Alya had been annoyed at first, saying her choice; ‘Aloe’ was superior for aloe vera reasons).

It had long irked Adrien that the media seemed to insist to the public that Chloe and Alya had just been some summer fling. As if they didn't carry the weight off each other's back at breaking points. Like Chloe hadn't turned down photoshoots to be by Alya's side. Like Alya hadn't listened to Chloe crying from a panic attack for hours on the phone when she'd travel last month back to Paris. 

But it had been the debacle of the times, the modern love triangle that divided all. The war of the Twitter worlds. It was also one of Adrien, Chloe and Alya’s main source of entertainment.

To fuck with the press, after all, was their unanimously beloved hobby.

Today, Adrien wears a letterman jacket with an embroidered “C + A” on the back and front. Twitter would be sinking its teeth at every candid shot in a short span of t minus thirty minutes.

Alya stares at him, awed, as he enters her car.

He grins at her, “You like?”

She swings her head back, howling with laughter and instinctively whips out her phone to take a picture. “Oh, you are a fucking menace.”

“I never deny it.”

“Oh, they will eat this up for _days_.” she marvels, admiring the jacket.

“They better,” Adrien huffs, pulling his seatbelt on, “The seamstress didn’t get confused and scandalised making this for _nothing._”

“It’s so perfect. They will lose their minds about whether it’s me or you.” Alya snickers, starting the car, “You’ll be either the LGBT ally or embarrassingly straight. I love it when your braincells do this, Agreste.”

“You love me even without those braincells.” he says, connecting his phone on bluetooth to play some 80’s synth pop.

Surely, as the notification and text alerts begin to vehemently stack like cards, it has already been digested.

By the time they’re stuck in the woes of New York traffic, he gets a voice message text from Chloe. The car’s speakers, loud and clear, blare 1 minute and 22 seconds of her hysterical laughter.

* * *

“Adrien is trending on Twitter.” Nino had said out loud that morning over breakfast.

Marinette is so far gone at her painting now situated in the kitchen island that her body refuses to process any initial panic at Agreste’s name.

“Pray, do tell.” she replies instead.

This is a lie. There exists no pleas for any form of gossip from Marinette and Nino knows this. She hadn’t known Miley and Liam called it quits for, like, a year. It took Party in The USA innocently playing in a 2009 Throwback Hits! Spotify playlist for Marinette to quietly mutter out loud if she was Miley Hemsworth now. Nino had dropped his fork mid-pasta, gasping.

But now Nino humours her and reads in a formal voice the scandal of a Twitter TMZ headline;

“C + A. The jacket dividing all about the Golden Trio love triangle.” he begins, “Adrien Agreste flaunts the letterman jacket embroidered with the initials that leaves us wondering who is who and whose heart broke whose...”

Marinette snorts as she dips a paintbrush into Pthalo Blue, “What the hell?”

Marinette is vaguely aware of Nino’s friendship with the Golden Trio and their Golden crowd and Golden Beer or whatever. Rich kids, Marinette had brazenly concluded during freshman year, Nino had become acquianted with Rich Kids. And pleasantly acquainted too. Pleasantly enough that Nino had showed up once in a _People’s _magazine column in two of several blurry candid shots of Adrien’s apparent entourage on their way to Wendy’s out of all places at 7pm (Nino had explained that Adrien hadn’t had spicy chicken nuggets in five years. He had also apparently tragically settled on the apple pecan chicken salad in the end.)

With such friendship came Nino’s mass of invitations to any of the Golden Trio’s infamous house parties with the generous extension of a plus-one for years. Marinette, stubborn on life and high on third-year stress, profusely declined each of Nino’s annoyingly persuasive invites, with the now recent exception of a certain blunder.

Nino grins, scrolling down the flurry of tweets on his timeline, “Oh look, twitter user agrestesfanclub says keysmash and, I quote, ‘Adrien knew the gays needed this type of energy during these trying times, he is on his king shit’.”

“My god,” Marinette chortles, “He’s probably just taking the piss out of everyone thinking Chloe and him were meant to be since they were kids.”

Nino smirks at her, finishing the last of his omelette, “Oh, a Chlolya supporter, are we? I didn’t think you had it in you.”

She shakes her head, “If there’s anything Cesaire and Bourgeous’ borderline PDA has made me think, it’s that love is, like, 75% real. And that true love can be a hindrance to the general public. I don’t think they’re faking.”

“Do I hear _optimism_ in _love _in that statement, Mari?” Nino drawls, mock shock.

She flicks microsized flecks of paint on him with her brush, “Fuck you, I happen to believe in love a perfectly average amount. I just think if they were really faking it, they would’ve done it with less tongue.”

Nino cackles, unabashed. Oh, he really had to connect his friends groups _soon._

* * *

“Look who’s trending on Twitter.” Chloe says when they get out of the car.

She’s hiding a shit-eating grin behind a cup of coffee. The cameras fixed at her must not record on paper her delight.

She smiles and Adrien knows it reaches her eyes even though they’re obscured by large imposing shades. Alya steps out of the car a moment later; Adrien can hear the frantic click of cameras increase at this. The paparazzi stray further away from the school’s grounds because the university has already threatened to sue a bunch of times but they take what they can get at large distances. This was, undoubtedly, the scoop of the season. On par with that one time Tom Hiddleston wore a ‘I HEART T.S’ tank top.

“What are they saying?” Adrien asks, clutching his bag. He throws a singular peace sign to a photographer situated in a bush.

“50/50.” she provides, easily, “But I’d say the queer community is particularly fierce in its stance that you are a champion for lesbian rights.”

He raises a brow, “And I don’t suppose the other side champions for you and I’s heteronormative rights?”

“If there is such a thing.” Alya joins in.

“Isn’t it cute, baby?” Chloe says, looping her arm over Alya’s, “Adrien is supporting our rights through his fashion.”

“I wish you’d financially support our rights via overpriced restaurants”

Adrien sighs, “I paid once for your four month anniversary dinner involving $250 shrimp and I’m not financially ready to do it again.”

This is a lie. Adrien can financially launch any number of shrimp in that price range at his best friends. But it would be detrimental to his mental psyche.

‘That’s a lie.” Chloe says.

“Hmm.” Adrien pretends to ponder, posing his best face angles for the paparazzi, “You’ll have to get back to me on that.”

* * *

Marinette lays out an array of pencils to the table in a hurry next to the easel with a canvas with the little time she’d gotten to set anything up. She’d actually ran towards the building as soon as she’d stepped one foot out the train, doing so with a rather impressive array of curse words.

If there were any real advantages of teaching a stranger what to do, it’d be the fact that for the spare hour or so, she needn’t think about what _she_ is doing.

Marinette’s not an awful teacher, so it ought not to be too awful of an hour. After all, all she needs to do is;

  1. Hurriedly skim over sketching basics
  2. Hurriedly skim over painting foundations
  3. Reset the alarmingly recurring expectations from beginners that they’ll walk out of the room as Da Vinci’s reincarnate.

But it’s nearly 9:30 now and Marinette prepares for it all. It’s going to be _fine, _she wills the thought into her head. This is going to be fine. Nino said it’d be fine; he’s right, like, 75% of the time.

A knock on the door interrupts her thoughts.

“Hello?” A muffled voice calls from the other side. Huh. It sounds oddly familiar.

“Ah,” Marinette glances at the door behind her for a second then wipes both hands on her painting apron for absolutely no reason, “The door’s open. Come in.”

“Oh,” a pause, “Coming in.”

Behind her, she hears the door creak open. She hasn’t turned around yet, instead arranging the last brushes on the table before catching a glimpse of the clock near the shelf; 9:25am.

The voice says what Marinette thinks might’ve been a ‘hello’ before becoming halted and thus became ‘hell’. Then, a cough.

Marinette turns, a welcoming smile plastered on.

“Hey! Wow, you came earlier than I—“

Marinette’s mouth freezes mid-sentence.

In front of her Adrien Agreste’s face is blank, staring. Almost gaping, like he hasn’t processed enough of this and he’s still trying to pick through which emotion to display on his (infuriatingly good) face.

He is wearing the ridiculously bright red letterman jacket, dark blue wash jeans and a sweater underneath. True to Nino’s news earlier, ‘C + A’ is embroidered in front the jacket. His hands are frozen in mid-air; one clutching a half-eaten subway.

He is, Marinette processes hysterically, wearing Gucci shades.

Oh, he’s absolutely right. This _was_ ‘hell’.

* * *

Adrien hasn’t got any clue what he’s honestly done to deserve this. One time he’d skipped a bunch of classes because Gigi Hadid invited him on her birthday party at the Bahamas, yes, but that was ages ago and he apologised to the professor a bunch of times now.

Fine Arts Girl was glaring at him and to his horror, she looked like she was trying not to.

The Gucci shades was honestly not such a hot look on him anymore.

“Hello?” he says. What the _fuck _is his mouth doing?

“I—“ she pauses, still staring at him, “What are you doing here?”

“Um” he replies intelligently. His hand vaguely motions to the whole room like it’s making a point. It’s not. What the _fuck _is his hand doing?

“Are you…” she says slowly, almost wincing, “Are you here for the….beginner art lessons?”

The last bit is said so slowly that Adrien realises it’s because she doesn’t _want _him to recognise it. So that maybe him and his subway just ended up in this room coincidentally at 9:30am on the dot.

“Yes.”

Silence. She’s still staring at him, long enough for Adrien to actually really _look _at her properly.

Her dark hair styled in low pigtails is blue toned in the sunlight, baby blue eyes visibly taking him in, pink lips pursed and an apron covered with paint stains on. If Adrien wasn’t so frozen, he’d appreciate the view. Hell, if these were different (non-ulterior-motives) circumstances and he wasn’t holding a half-eaten subway in mid-air like a dumbass, he’d have flirted with a line or two by now.

But as of now, his feet are glued to the ground and his subway feels like it’s genuinely getting cold with how much time (15 seconds) has passed of him and Fine Arts Girl participating in an impromptu staring competition.

Finally, she fixes a neutral look on her face, a resolve seemingly washed over her. She hands him a sketchbook and turns back to the table with an array of art supplies.

“My name is Marinette,” she says, looking at him firmly, “Let’s get started.”

* * *

Adrien is a little perplexed by the time they’re twenty minutes into the lesson. Fine Arts Girl; _Marinette, _is exasperatingly good at her job.

After their introductions in which they both proceeded to pretend like yesterday did not Happen, she’d told him to finish his subway and _please,_ take the shades off. This was followed by an introduction to certain sketching pencils, an overview of different papers, what medium he’d like to focus on and in-between it all, a stern warning that he was not going to be ‘Da Vinci’s reincarnate’, to which he profusely agreed on. This seemed to calm the air between them.

They’re now seated in front a table basking in the sunlight, sketching an apple in front of them whilst Marinette explains contrast; what he’s pretty sure is the less complicated 3 minute crash course about it anyway.

“Are you a substitute teacher?” He asks suddenly. She quietly chuckles. A very good sound.

“No.” She shakes her head, “I’m just a TA.”

“Well, you’re very good.”

She switches to a 6B pencil; apparently, it makes lines darker. Adrien follows her lead as she shades. He’s suppose to be going along with her; copying moves before he goes ahead and makes his own in time (“It’s what all artists do first, really. Copy.”)

“Thanks,” she hums then looks ahead, “The concept of drawing from life doesn’t register instantly all the time. Especially if you’re new. But it can be both a test of caricature and duplication.”

“Hm?” He looks at the apple too. Red, bright red. Painfully ordinary and modest. Edible?

“You look at something, then form lines through shapes and shades only expressing what _you _see. Just you.” She explains, “No one else’s. Just you.”

“But we are just drawing the same thing.” He points at the apple.

“Not always. Even though it’s only little distance between us, we’re looking at the apple in different angles. And you might think that apple’s red. I might think it’s fuchsia.”

He raises an eyebrow, “Do you?”

“You never know who could be colourblind.”

Now he raises both brows, “Are you really?”

She laughs. Adrien thinks he’s getting laughed at, but after all, it _is _a pleasant sound she’s making so he chuckles along.

“No.” She says, then; “Just draw. You don’t need to understand what I’m saying now.”

He nods and resumes, adding more lines, holding the pencil the way Marinette has been. Which is kind of how one grips a swing but drawing instead. Marinette’s laptop has been consistently blaring 90s hits for some reason in their drawing time. He eventually asks.

“Oh. Sorry, did you want to play something else?” She reaches for her laptop as Adrien protests.

“No, I’m just wondering why it’s all songs from the 90’s.”

“It’s just whatever my best friend always plays. He’s obsessed with 90’s anything, has been for ages,” she says, continuing to shade.

She’s suddenly got a fond look to her face and Adrien finds himself wondering if her best friend is actually something more. (It’s an odd thing to think, he mentally chastises himself. It’s not like it’s any of his business really.)

She continues, “I don’t really listen to music much so he often plays what he likes. I just take after him.”

“Wait, how can you not play music often?” He asks, incredulous, “What about when you paint?”

“Painting in class is usually everyone fighting over the playlist. I like to paint in silence.”

That…sounded scary. Who can go that silent for that long? Adrien’s life is cluttered with noise. Boomboxes blaring latest hits at parties, the shutter clicks of cameras, the paparazzi yelling out whatever (“Adrien! Hey Adrien! Are you aware of the recent sightings of Chloe and Alya kissing in Prospect Park? Any words on this, Adrien? Adrien!”), the murmur of whispers whenever he enters a room with a crowd (“His dad practically built his modelling career for him! Ungrateful much?“) and Hayley Kiyoko’s entire discography (Alya.).

Adrien is too used to it that he doesn’t know entirely what silence is like, much less if he wants it. He’s not sure whether to share this though.

“That’s cool.” He says instead. Very cool indeed.

* * *

By the time they’re finished, Adrien feels like he’s forgotten something.

He doesn’t ponder over this though. Instead he’s making mental lists to buy a pack of pencils like the ones Marinette used. With the 6B and 8B pencils and whatnot; he likes 2B most. He likes colour, so he should buy coloured ones too. Though they haven’t jumped into colour yet but maybe they will next week.

“Don’t buy anything too expensive.” Marinette says as she packs up the supplies into a bag.

He nods. But he’s already made up a $100 budget in his head.

Marinette raises an eyebrow at him like she can read his mind. She doesn’t say anything about it though so he smiles, thanks her for the lesson, negotiates the time for the next (1:30pm) and waves her goodbye.

* * *

It happens ten minutes later.

He’s about to cross the street outside the building when she walks by right beside him, hand on a tote bag and clutching a book to her chest. As if the last thirty minutes of decently friendly human interaction hadn’t just occurred between them, they stood there in silence.

Adrien hasn’t got a clue what to do.

It feels far too much like bumping into a professor in a Whole Foods aisle; what do you even _say? _Hello? Thanks again for the lesson?

She surprisingly breaks the silence as they wait to cross.

“Rubbing alcohol or nail polish remover” she says, a little quietly that for a second Adrien doesn’t register that she’d spoken at all.

_What. “_What?”

“It’ll help get rid of the paint stain.”

He stands there, still confused. Before suddenly looking down at his attire, now scanning a little frantically. He does not remember a paint stain on his clothes at all, a mirror selfie (shit, he posted it on Instagram too) now flashing before his eyes.

Marinette sighs, “No. Not that. From yesterday.”

Huh. Adrien didn’t think they were acknowledging Yesterday. He looks at her side profile, her eyes fixed on the pedestrian signal resolutely.

“Your jacket from yesterday. It has a paint stain to the side.”

Oh. He guessed it did.

“I’ll pick some up at the store.”

This somehow brings about an honest to god smile from her. This was it? This is what she’s going to smile about after all this time? Nail polish remover being picked up by him for the sole use of scrubbing away some paint stain? But Adrien likes the smile so he does it back.

The signal flashes green. They cross.

From the quiet distance, a camera clicks.

* * *

At the art store hours after it has all passed and Chloe is on the phone with him is when it finally occurs to Adrien.

He’s carrying a shopping basket, it’s gotten way heavier than intended. He’s created an absolute monstrosity of a pile of products he didn’t mean to carry. He has no idea what Copics are but the art store worker had given a mini speech about them and now he’s crouching down in front the marker aisle, looking for a shade of blue he likes.

“Hey.” she greets him as he pulls to the phone to his ear.

“Not now,” he mutters, “What kind of blue do you think fits a clear sky? BG01 or BG15?”

He’s glaring at the two markers against each other in his hands, their little code number things on top.

“What?” she says, “Nevermind, how did your thing go? Got any info from the TA about your artist?”

He’s halfway into resolving to choose BG15 when he stops, processing her words.

The painting. His goddamned painting in his goddamned room painted by a goddamned mystery artist. Adrien nearly drops BG01 on the floor.

"My God." he whispers.

"What?"

“I am a fucking idiot.”

* * *

Marinette arrives at the apartment and scrambles towards the kitchen where Nino was, unironically, baking bread.

“Wow,” he says, taking in her appearance (lifeless eyes, fucked up ponytail, her entire shirt and arm littered with paint stains), “You look like you just got attacked by Bob Ross at the back of a Wendy’s.”

“It would be my honour to meet that man,” she tosses her bag to the carpet, diving onto the couch, “Even if he’s about to murder me.”

“At the back of a Wendy’s no less.”

Marinette just grunts, appreciating the smell of dough from the oven filtering through the air.

“How was the lesson?” he asks. He leans his arms on the counter, scrolling through his phone as he inquires.

Marinette groans and sinks further into the coach. How _was _the lesson? How was Adrien Agreste with his stupid subway and his stupid (good) face and his stupid patience that Marinette has never experienced with a student before and his stupid letterman jacket and his stupid paint stain (that will hopefully be gone with a nail polish remover or rubbing alcohol)?

He didn’t even seem like he had known she was the TA so all thoughts about what could possibly have been his revenge plan had gone out the window.

“It was your friend.” She admits, “Adrien.”

Nino looks up to this, surprised, “Oh?”

“Yeah, he showed up with…subway.” And patience and a letterman jacket and a good smile and—God, Marinette needs to stop.

Nino chuckles, “Well, I’m glad he’s not too strict on his diet anymore? That’s good though. I guess that’s why he stopped over to the art building yesterday.”

Marinette just hums vaguely in response. She doesn’t know if she should tell Nino she might’ve been a little harsh on his friend yesterday and now they have to act like it never happened except Marinette also went and fucked up that plan by mentioning something from yesterday because what the fuck are you suppose to say in that silence when you both have to cross the street.

“I…..” She begins.

“You?” Nino raises an eyebrow, almost as if daring her to confess even though that makes no sense because he doesn’t know anything. Marinette groans.

“Imight’vebeenabitrudetohimyesterdayandnowwehavetoactlikenothinghappened” she explains in rush, hoping it goes over his head. Which it never does.

“Huh.” Nino says after a beat, then shrugs, “I guess he doesn’t hold grudges?”

Marinette whines. Nino doesn’t even know about her I-also-painted-in-his-room-at-the-party accident. He’s going to judge a little more about _that_.

“Hey,” he tries again, “Adrien is a good guy. His life is kinda hectic. I don’t think he’s got any bad intentions. Probably trying to find some quiet for once. Painting seems like a good hobby to that.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“But on more pressing matters,” he grins, “Did you see the letterman jacket?”

Marinette laughs. Of course Nino cared more about that.

“Yes, he wore it.” She confirms, “I still think it’s probably a big fuck you to the press.”

“Really? In the hours you were gone, Twitter has decided the jacket is now a universally acknowledged lesbian symbol. On par with the Lirika Matoshi strawberry dress.”

Nino tosses his phone to the soft plush of the couch and Marinette obliges; picking it up with the screen on Twitter’s trending page. #C+A was indeed trending number two worldwide. Bella Hadid and Cara Delavingne’s baby adoption announcement news sat on number one. “Wow.”

She clicks on the hashtag, bombarded with photos of Adrien jacket clad that morning. His Gucci shades on, a neutral look to his face. He looked irritatingly good.

There were several long threads detailing how it most definitely meant Chloe + Alya. The photographs of the three arriving in front of the school had only strengthened this conviction.

“Hectic.” She whispers under her breath.

There are no doubts there were a lot of paparazzi at the scene considering way too many shots of different angles of Adrien’s face. It’s odd, he’s almost like a painting subject that way with everyone photographing the same person over and over. _But we are just painting the same thing. _

Marinette puts the phone down eventually and closes her eyes. She guessed Adrien didn’t really have a choice on the whole silence thing like she did. Maybe she shouldn’t put on songs next time. But what if that makes them tumble back into awkwardness? Marinette liked the quiet but she liked It _alone. _The only other person she could do that kind of thing with was her parents and Nino who blasted songs on her most of the time anyway.

Five minutes in when Marinette was deep into her contemplation of perhaps putting on one of those 1 hour YouTube meditation sound videos next lesson is when Nino's phone perks up, notifying of a new TMZ report on Twitter.

Marinette glances at the notification then at Nino at the counter. She raises a brow.

“Really? You put post notifications on for _TMZ?” _

Nino braves a look of feigned offence, “Hey! It’s one of my many sources of entertainment. Unlike you, _I _know when Brad Pitt has a new girlfriend.”

Marinette’s brows pull together, a little shocked, “Him and Angelina broke up?”

“It’s like you woke up yesterday,” Nino groans, “What does the new report say anyway?”

Marinette rolls her eyes and absentmindedly clicks on the notification. The app pulls up as Marinette shoots him a look. “I can’t believe they broke up.”

“They broke up ages ago! He had a whole post divorce depression outfit and everything!”

Marinette scoffs before scanning the post before her. Adrien’s name occurs to her first. Before she can write it off as another report about this morning, she takes in the photograph attached. It most definitely is in school grounds considering the building behind him. Agreste’s face is upfront, smiling rather earnestly. It’s at an obscured figure in front of him, half a head short and blocking a portion of his attire. It looks like a pedestrian crossing and _huh, _Marinette swears the person’s outfit looks startlingly like hers, the hairstyle from the back identical too and the keywords ‘new girlfriend’, ‘mystery girl’ all scream at her from the page and oh look, they even have the same tote bag and—

“What the _fuck._”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been a hot minute. here's to these two again. note that considering I live In australia i haven't stepped foot at a Wendy's my whole goddamned life.
> 
> leave kudos or comment if you liked n tell me what u think !! <3


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